"Time-locked, my arse!" Jack screamed as he hurtled into the clammy blackness of space.
The Dalek attempted to swivel its headpiece, but Jack clung stubbornly to its frame, its malevolent pilot freezing in the sub-zero voids without its environmental protection. Jack gritted his teeth and yanked hard at the metal dome, his prosthetic arm grating against his shoulder-bone and his fingers skidding over the icy metal carapace. The heavy crown toppled and span almost gracefully away into the dark, and the nightmare creature inside struggled briefly, stubby tentacles flickering, before floating motionlessly after. Jack expelled the last breath in his lungs, and succumbed to his inevitable death.
He was alive for a few, horrifying seconds, the vacuum sucking greedily at his body, before he died again.
And again.
And again.
One day previously
"How does it feel?" Bast smiled at Jack as he flexed his foot experimentally.
"Just like a bought one," he grinned back. "Its good, thanks."
She shook her head, and began to tidy up the surgical equipment. "You have to take better care of yourself, Jack. You're falling to pieces."
He stood carefully, testing the new foot. "But Bast, my darling, then I wouldn't see you as often as I like."
She snorted, her veil fluttering at her ear. "Flattery will get you nowhere."
He caught and span her into his arms, "You sure about that?" he winked roguishly down at her. She smacked his arms until he let her go.
"Get off, you great lummox!"
"Can't blame a guy for trying," he wiped his now redundant plasteel hand through his pure-white hair.
"A normal guy, sure," she said a bit snippily.
"So what's the verdict, Doc?"
She straightened her robes and whiskers, seemingly considering her answer. Jack waited patiently. He'd known and loved her too long to rush her.
"Jack," she said seriously and slowly, almost drawling his name, "when I met you, you were the picture of normal, human health, with one or two exceptions. Those exceptions are now the rule. We can't halt the mutation."
Jack just kept waiting, watching her gently.
She spread her paws helplessly. "I'm sorry, Jack. You're changing slowly. Your blood is thicker than syrup and your arteries have hardened like stone. Your skin, even…" she gestured to his face. "And you don't help matters, scattering limbs that will never perish over this planet or that in stupid little wars."
"I'm trying to confuse the archaeologists," Jack smirked.
"I mean it, Jack! You're thirty-percent prosthetic now. You have to look after yourself better!"
"Never happen, darling," he told her, and kissed her gently. "I'm way, way too set in my habits by now."
"Jack…" her luminous green eyes glimmered wetly, "you might be 140 thousand years old, but you're not indestructible. Please. Try. For me."
He smoothed his flesh-and-bone hand over her face, the contrast between her soft fawn-coloured fur and his own darkening skin with its sheen like cracked wet leather alarming, even to his eyes. "Bast, I'll try."
She sighed, and pushed her face against his hand. "That's all I ask."
"Is the prisoner alive?"
"The prisoner remains alive."
"Then prepare the chamber!"
"I obey."
"We will have the secret!"
"We will never die!"
Jack died.
Time passes.
He spends far more time dead than alive. When he does reanimate, it is to a sense of something monstrously wrong. He has learned to time his psychic distress call to within a second of life re-entering his body.
His body…
Monstrously wrong, yes. He can no longer feel his fingers or toes, and this lack of sensation grows stronger with each flush of life. The pain has caused him to die of its own accord innumerable times.
He has memorised the ceiling above the bed where he has been strapped for — he doesn't know how long. The malicious minds of the daleks that scurry around him seem to think he has been there for a very long time.
Didn't look after myself very well, Bast my love, he thinks bitterly, before dying again.
"Is he staying this time?" The voice was achingly familiar, and yet not.
"Looks like it," came the reply. "Now take it easy, you've been a captive for years…"
Jack tried to speak, but his jaw simply worked uselessly. Reverting to mindspeech, he said, where am I?
The female voice was sardonic as she said, "well, you weren't wrong, Doctor. A psi-talent indeed. So this is the source of the distress call."
"You're in the TARDIS," came the familiar, not-familiar voice. "You're safe."
Jack's eyes flew open, and though he could make out no shapes, the tall blur and presence of that well-known mind was enough. Doctor!
"He evidently knows you," the female said cheerily.
"Evidently," the Doctor growled. "I would prefer it, Romana, if you kept your observations to yourself."
"I'm sure you would, Doctor. I'm sure you would." The amused lilt in the woman's voice was unmistakable, and Jack felt the corners of his lips turn up despite himself. "See, our guest agrees with me."
"Then he has no manners," the Doctor sniffed. "Now kindly stop it, this is extremely serious."
You've always known I had no manners, Doc, Jack sent.
"No, I haven't. Not always." The Doctor's voice was deadly quiet. "You know me, but I certainly don't know you. This has the potential to be catastrophic."
Jack's brow furrowed. You're the Doctor. You know everything.
"I take it back. He doesn't know you at all," the woman drawled.
"But it's not only that. You… distort time in some way. You feel…"
Wrong? Jack supplied, amusement warring with irritation.
The Doctor cleared his throat. "I wouldn't go that far…"
You did once.
"Now stop it, stop that at once!" The Doctor's hand smacked down on a surface by Jack's head. "Then there's the way you've drawn all that… that… how old are you?"
One hundred and forty-two thousand, six-hundred and forty-three, Jack replied. No wait, skipped one, forty-four. Getting on a bit.
"That's… that's impossible," the woman whispered.
"Haven't I taught you anything, Romana?" the Doctor's voice was soft. "Now, don't tell me your name, but... How long have you known me?"
One hundred and forty-two thousand, six-hundred and twelve years, and Jack's mindtone resonated with affection.You're lousy at remembering weddings, been late to mine twice. You love bananas, tea and single-malt whisky. You lie about your age constantly. You flap about in a small crisis, but are brutally efficient in a big one. You hit the TARDIS because she likes it. And you taste fantastic.
A resounding silence, and then Romana said, "I guess he does know you."
Jack sighed. May I establish contact? It could save a lot of time.
"Time's the last thing you ought to worry about," the Doctor said severely, but long fingers obediently went to Jack's temples. "Contact."
Jack's first impression was of golden hair, but he quickly sorted that out to mean the woman beside him, Romana. Of the Doctor himself, he received an image of a tall man with shoulder-length wavy brown hair, soft eyes and a bottle-green velvet jacket. And sadness, overwhelming sadness, and a weariness that felt heavier than the eons Jack carried with him.
Jack's eyes flew open. Take them away.
The long fingers that smelled so like the Doctor he knew gently released him. "Is there something wrong?"
I know what happens. I can't be here.
"Happens?" Romana said apprehensively.
Now. Here and now. This is the Time-War, right? I was captured by Daleks, I know that much. They've done something to my body, I know that too. But most importantly, I know what happens next — and so I've got to go.
"You're in no state to go anywhere," the Doctor said firmly. "And I can contain my curiosity."
No, you can't! You've never been able to!
"It's like he's your mother," Romana marvelled.
I did not need that image, thanks, President Romanadvoratrelundar.
"The point is moot anyw - how do you know her full name?" the Doctor interrupted himself.
Know yours, too. Jack grinned, remembering the circumstances in which he'd received it.
The Doctor's shock was palpable. "I tell you my name."
Yup.
"Why?"
So that someone remembers it for you after you're gone. Jack blinked rapidly. Why can't I see?
"We…" Romana's voice was still awed. "We, ah… think the time you spent floating in the vacuum before the Daleks picked you up has freeze-dried you somewhat and then they… compounded the damage when they started their experiment…"
So what's the verdict, Doc? It had seemed like only days ago he had said that to his beloved Bast. Now it appeared that it was years ago. How many birthdays had he missed, strapped to a metal table?
"I'm sorry," said the Doctor gently. "I am so, so sorry. They've cut off your head."
They wha…? That was just… stupid. He hadn't heard right.
"Romana thinks that they tried to replicate your renewing cells in order to build more Daleks with them, but when the cloned cells acted exactly the same as normal human tissue matter, they started harvesting yours. They… they got as far as your head before…"
I'm a head, Jack said blankly.
"I'm sorry," the Doctor whispered. Those long fingers were touching his cheek, the pads catching on the rough leathery grooves.
A head.
"Do you think he's still in shock?" Romana whispered.
A slow, thin wail built somewhere inside Jack, inside the place his chest should be. Show. Me.
"I don't think you ought to…"
Jack's mouth worked silently around the syllables of the Doctor's true, secret name, and his powerful mind started to shriek. DOCTOR. SHOW ME.
The fingers were back at his temple. "Then use my eyes."
Jack blinked once, and then was abruptly looking out at the TARDIS, though it looked so different, gothic even. A slight blonde woman with an imperious bearing but a worried expression gripped the edge of the console, her eyes never leaving the Doctor's (now Jack's) green-clad form. He could feel the double-heartbeat thudding rapidly as the Doctor allowed Jack more control of his body. Jack swallowed once with the Doctor's throat, met Romana's eyes, and then looked down to where something small and pitiful lay on the console, a metal cap covering a bloody neck-stump streaked with grey, dead flesh.
Easy, came this young Doctor's voice inside their shared body. Look, it's not all over, they'll be able to build you a synthskin body, just as good as the old one…
The old one was mine! Jack's mind wailed its grief.
It's not that bad, the Doctor insisted. You're here, you're alive! You'll make it work — are you telling me you're seriously going to give up after one hundred and forty-two thousand, six-hundred and forty-four years?
I'm a… head. Jack's grief started to wax hysterical. A head. Oh my god, look at me…
His blue eyes were cloudy, and the rough skin on his face was still that same browned wet-leather look he'd had for the last fifteen thousand years. His thick shock of bright white hair was shaved on one side, and a pair of ropy scars ran over the bare patch. "They did something to my brain as well?" he burst out.
Hearing his words in the Doctor's mouth was strange, so strange. He startled slightly, and Romana darted forward and steadied him. "Easy, you two."
"You're shorter than I expected," Jack told her dreamily. "But then… so am I…"
Easy there.
Romana squeezed his (their) hands. "We can't do any more for you. We've got to get you to a hospital, and fast."
Bast, and Jack's borrowed hearts surged with longing. My Bast.
We'll get you to her, the Doctor promised.
You'll have to forget, Jack reminded him.
I know.
Jack looked down with the Doctor's eyes at his own disembodied head and felt something huge and inexorable pull at him.
"Well, if it isn't the Face of Boe," he said.
Three days later:
"How does it feel?" Bast smiled tremulously at him, her eyes wet.
Wonderful, he sighed, his face buried in the soft fur under her chin. Love you, Bast.
"Sixteen years. Sixteen whole years. You're an idiot, Jack Harkness."
As charged.
"This body will need maintaining, Jack. I know what you said about old habits…" and she grimaced ruefully, "and I'm certainly one of those now, but I never again want to see what I saw two days ago. Never again."
I'm sorry, love. Jack wound the strange new limbs around her, the sensation bizarrely familiar. He could feel the mechanical heart pumping away at his molasses-thick blood, and the whirring of tiny organic valves. And you are not old! I'm old! You're just a kid, they'll be locking me up.
"Jack," she tipped his chin up, her fur rubbing against the metal join around his neck. "I'm old. You're ancient. Look at me."
His new elbow propping him up in the bed, Jack studied her, her soft green eyes, the insubstantial curve of her whiskers, her delicate ears that she never allowed to be seen in public. You're beautiful.
"And my fur is grey, my ears are rounded, my back teeth are gone and I'll be dead before you blink," she said sadly.
Never say that, Jack reached out and his new hand hovered beside her face for two seconds. May I?
She nodded, and Jack carefully pulled two whiskers from her face. She wrinkled her nose. "That hurts, you know."
You said I could, he reminded her. Hand me that box?
She passed it over. "What's in here? You've never brought it before."
I keep it in a safe place, he said, opening it carefully. Dirty white dust greeted him, and he imagined he could still smell the loam of a city bathed in sunshine.
"What's it made of? Never seen anything like it," she marvelled.
Wood, Jack gently dropped the whiskers into the box. There. Now you're with me always.
"Show me." And she pulled his face down to hers again.